After days of planning and hours of prepping, you finally shared the long-anticipated Thanksgiving meal with all your holiday guests. Now, don’t let all that hard work go to waste! Rather than using your leftovers to make your typical turkey sandwich, you can take a creative approach with these updated recipes. Making a one-of-a-kind breakfast or cozying up with a warm bowl of turkey chili will continue to impress any weekend guests and you’ll feel good knowing your leftovers were put to good use.

Give your mashed potatoes a second chance by simply adding a few ingredients. Crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, these potato pancakes are easy to make and are a great way to revive leftover taters.

If you’re anything like us, you like your holidays on ice—as well as shaken, stirred and garnished with a seasonal treat. Now that we’re approaching Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, you’ll need a collection of cocktails to wow your guests and family members through the New Year.
This winter, swap your go-to holiday bubbly for these festive coconut cocktails. (Sprouts Coconut Water’s magical ability to cure a hangover or a headache of any kind is also a serious bonus.) Cheers!

Mrs. Clause’s Coconut Crantini

This one’s for the ladies. The crantini is great year round, but it’s especially nice as a festive holiday drink.
Servings: 1
Prep Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

Instructions:

Rim a martini glass with coarse sugar crystals. Place frozen cranberries in the bottom of the martini glass. Combine all ingredients in a shaker and shake with cubed ice. Strain liquid into glass. Sip and repeat.

The In-Laws are Here

This drink is a surefire way to survive your in-laws. The subtle rum doesn’t overpower the delicate flavor of the coconut water. You’ll find peace with each stress-relieving sip.
Servings: 1 Prep Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

Instructions:

Just shake and serve. If you’re feeling extra spirited, add a little more honey.

Rudolph’s Coco-Jito

Let’s say Rudolph and the gang took a pit stop while delivering presents in the Caribbean. After all, it doesn’t have to be summer for it to be mojito season! Mint leaves work well with the coconut water for a refreshing twist on the classic.
Servings: 1 • Prep Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

Instructions:

Muddle lime juice, sugar and mint leaves in a tall Collins glass. Fill with ice, then add rum and coconut water. Enjoy!
Alcohol not available in all stores. Must be 21 and older to drink. Please drink responsibly. From a previous issue of Sprouts Farmers Market’s monthly e-newsletter. Hungry? Sign up.

With the summer heat starting to really beat down, we’ve all got our favorite treats to turn to when we need to cool off. One of those is the pineapple whip float, where juice from the tropical fruit is topped with a pineapple ice cream that makes for the perfect refreshing dessert. We made our own version for the summer, but with a couple of epic twists. Enjoy this cute, fun and fresh fruit cup!

Instead of just serving these in a traditional cup, we hollowed out pineapples to create the floats in. We also opted for Blue Sky Soda’s Zero Sugar Ginger Ale, which mixed with the flavors of pineapple, add some zing and fizz.

The combination of the Blue Sky Soda Ginger Ale and the pineapple made for the ultimate refreshing treat that’s part pineapple float, part soda float, and 100 percent delicious.

Synergy from Seed to Supplement

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When it comes to supporting your health, everyone agrees that eating whole foods is the best way to get your nutrients. At Natural Factors, they developed EnviroSimplex®, a proprietary process that allows the natural enzymes, probiotics, and prebiotics to help culture their ingredients. This raw process concentrates and protects sensitive phytonutrients. This biomass used in their products contains the raw nutrition of whole plants—capturing all the vibrant energy and goodness of nature. The end result is the next generation of whole food supplements.

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Shop for Foods with Low Sugar

Ready or not school is just around the corner! Do you know what you’re going to pack your kids for lunch on their first day? Before you reach for the sweets, try this list of top 10 low-sugar lunch-box staples for great lunch ideas:

Sprouts Market Corner Wheat Bread

You can’t have a list of lunch-box staples and forget the most critical piece to making sandwiches: bread. Oftentimes, bread is loaded with unnecessary added sugar and sodium. Not only is the Sprouts Market Corner Wheat Bread made with whole-grain wheat flour, it also has less than one gram of sugar per slice.

Horizon Organic Mozzarella String Cheese

String cheese is a quick and portable way to pack some protein and calcium into your lunch box. Cheese is naturally sugar-free, but more importantly, Horizon Organic Mozzarella String Cheese is also free of man-made, antifungal mold inhibitors.

Biena Chickpea Snacks

Crunchy, slightly salty and full of fiber, Biena Chickpea snacks are made with just chickpeas, oil and sea salt. Zero sugar. They also pack a whopping six grams of fiber and six grams of protein per serving—helping to keep you fuller longer so you won’t wish you’d packed more for lunch.

Simple Mills Almond Flour Crackers

Whether you’re making a bento-box lunch, or sending cheese and crackers for a snack, you can’t go wrong with Simple Mills Almond Flour Crackers. They’ve got that classic crunchy cracker feel without preservatives and added sugar. (Crackers are a common place for unnecessary, added sugar to hide.) These are also suitable for anyone with celiac disease, gluten sensitivity or dairy intolerance, since they’re made with naturally gluten- and dairy-free ingredients.

Beanitos Baked White Bean Mac ‘n Cheese Crunch

A cheese puff that has navy beans listed as the first ingredient? Sign me up! These puffs from Beanitos are a much better alternative to the traditional lunch-box staple. They pack three grams of protein per serving and bring a little fun to your lunch box. They’re also made without added sugar and only have two grams of naturally occurring sugar in each serving.

Sprouts Organic Popcorn – Lightly Sea Salted

With only three ingredients—popcorn, oil and sea salt—Sprouts Organic Popcorn (Lightly Sea Salted) is a great way to pack some fiber into lunchtime. Zero grams of sugar and three grams of fiber per serving help to sustain energy levels and keep blood sugar levels stable throughout the day.

Sprouts Organic Pretzels

Whether you pick the unsalted twists or the sticks, you really can’t go wrong with Sprouts Brand Organic Pretzels. Just like crackers, pretzels often hide added sugar. But these have zero grams of added sugar and less than one gram of naturally occurring sugar. Go ahead, add this crunch to lunch!

Rhythm Superfoods Carrot Sticks

These carrot sticks from Rhythm Superfoods have just one ingredient: Wanna guess what it is? Yes—carrots—dehydrated carrots to be exact. All of their nutritional power is preserved so you don’t have to worry about losing any of the healthy benefits like you might with baked or fried versions. They also come in Sea Salt and Ranch flavors. You’ll feel good about this extra helping of veggies with a satisfying crunch!

RXBAR Kids

These kid-friendly versions of the popular adult protein bar are perfect for school lunches and snacks. They have zero grams of added sugar. And with seven grams of protein, five grams of fat and three grams of fiber, they are sure to sustain your child for at least a couple hours. The added protein from egg whites make them a better-for-you choice as well.

Barbara’s Puffins – Original

This tasty cereal is an easy-to-pack, post-lunch treat for your child, or yourself. Dry cereal can offer that little bit of sweetness we all look for after lunch. Barbara’s Puffins have three grams of protein, only five grams of sugar and five grams of fiber per serving making them a healthy “dessert” for lunch.
Hopefully, you feel better equipped for the far-too-quickly-approaching school year! Go make your grocery list and load up on these 10 low-sugar lunch-box staples. You and your kids will be fueled up without unnecessary added sugar!

Ideas for School Lunches

As everyone gets back into the groove of school, schedules become more and more crowded. Packed schedules don’t always have to mean packed lunches get moved to the wayside. Step aside crustless PB&Js, we’re here to make health taste great. Here are six new inspired back-to-school lunch ideas your kiddos will love to eat and you’ll be proud to make. Bonus: Add notes with jokes or fun facts—they’re are always a hit.

Brain Booster

It’s time to get those little gears turnin’! Easy to assemble, the Brain Booster lunch packs some nutritious punch with healthy fats from the eggs and a vitamin-rich berry medley.

Ingredients:

Brunch Box

When your kid can’t get enough of breakfast, pack it up again for lunch! Super easy to assemble in a snap, your kids will love the theme. Pro tip: Cut the waffles into strips after you toast them so the pieces are easy to dip.

Ingredients:

Colors of the Rainbow

Almost too pretty to eat, these assorted colorful goodies are sure to put a smile on their faces. From the red cherry tomatoes to the purple wrap bites, these ingredients will provide natural antioxidants and nutrients that taste just as good as they look.

Spinach salads are a summertime must, but they’ll hold their own through all the seasons. This paleo one in particular, put together by the founder of Primal Kitchen®, Mark Sisson, boasts the sweet taste of fresh strawberries, crunchiness of pecans and tang from feta cheese. To add more protein to this salad, you can mix in shredded chicken, sliced steak or chunks of salmon. Yum!

When eating paleo, protein is a priority. Jerky makes a great protein snack for post-workout fuel, to satisfy hunger between meals or for healthy, on-the-go snacking just about any time! As jerky’s popularity has grown, so have the flavors and types of meat. Besides beef, look for chicken, pork, bison, elk, venison, turkey, salmon and more.
Jerky gives you more nutritional bang for your buck. It’s made with lean cuts of meat so it will dry out properly. This makes it a healthy protein choice because it’s low in saturated fat. Paleo jerky has many nutritional benefits over conventional jerky—without sacrificing taste. For example, the sugar content of paleo jerky is usually 2 grams or less, whereas conventional jerky ranges from 5–9 grams of sugar per ounce.

This article was brought to you by our friend, Jill West, RDN, at Caveman Foods.

A bit of a mouthful, erythritol, (sounds like air-rith-rih-tall), is a sweetener you may have seen listed among other ingredients for things like chewing gum, baked goods and beverages. While it sounds new, erythritol was discovered by Scottish chemist John Stenhouse in 1848. This sugar alcohol occurs naturally in some fruits like watermelon, pears and grapes, as well as some fermented foods like wine, sake and soy sauce.
Even though small amounts of erythritol are present in nature, for mass production, it is generally made from cornstarch. It is about 60–80% as sweet as sucrose (sugar) but is nearly non-caloric. And, unlike sugar, it does not cause spikes in blood sugar, because the body doesn’t break it down like a sugar, making it a great option for those seeking an alternative sweetener.

Something to Smile About

Other sugar alcohols you might know include sorbitol and xylitol. Like its sweet brethren, erythritol supports dental health because it can help suppress the growth of bad bacteria and acids, two things that can lead to tooth decay—that’ll give you something to smile about!

Did you know?

Even though erythritol was discovered in the mid-1800s, it wasn’t used as a sweetener until 1990.

Give into that sweet tooth craving- thank us later. Pile on scoops of gelato for a sweet, melt-in-your-mouth kind of bite. This is a fun way to get kids involved with cooking and an even better way to save time on dish washing, because you’ll be eating the bowl!

Instructions:

Grease bottom of muffin tin. Roll out dough on floured surface to 1/3 inch thickness. Cut 5-inch round disks from dough. Cover one disk over the bottom of each muffin tin, pressing to form smooth surface.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until edges are golden brown.

Cool on pan for 10 minutes, then carefully loosen bottom edges of cookies from pan using spatula. Allow cups to cool completely on wire cooling rack.